


Underground

by latesummerfire



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 04:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17995037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latesummerfire/pseuds/latesummerfire
Summary: Hecate Hardbroom and Indigo Moon are forced to face one another.





	Underground

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get this out before the new episode tomorrow, and before we find out if Indigo discovers who Hecate really is. So this may be irrelevant soon enough, oh well. Please give it a read and leave kudos and a comment! :) I may continue it if anyone is interested. special thanks to TypicalRAinbow for their awesome beta work! :D

All it took was a sip of Indigo Moon’s failed potion.

Miss Hardbroom hadn’t expected such a reaction, for the girl stood there, hiccup-less, with no symptoms at all.

Perhaps it was a mixture of that, and her own abilities. Perhaps it was Hecate herself being stressed these past few days that may have had something to do with it.

Perhaps, just perhaps, she shouldn’t have reached out to grab her student/childhood friend as she felt herself falling faint.

But she did.

The two teleported and appeared in what seemed like total darkness. Indigo could feel Miss Hardbroom’s hand on her wrist loosen, and she reached out into the pitch black, grabbing her potions teacher, helping her regain her balance.

“Thank you,” she gasped, her pale face finally coming into focus as she stood shakily on her feet.

“Are you okay?” Indigo asked concernedly as her eyes adjusted, but as she asked, her teacher pulled out of her grasp, looking at her wide-eyed as usual. Indigo hated the way Miss Hardbroom looked at her as if she was an offending ghost from the past. 

The woman turned from her and began to investigate their surroundings.

Indigo looked around too. It appeared to be some sort of a cave. Judging by the cold and the dampness in the air, they were underground. The only light in the room came from a sliver in the ceiling further along, and Indigo walked towards it, looking up.

It was as if they were buried under rubble.

Maybe they were under the school?

Indigo pulled a box of matches out from her pocket and struck one. She then started looking around for another escape route.

“You foolish girl!” Hecate suddenly seethed, storming over to Indigo, who whipped around and stood her ground, staring calmly back at her as the old witch thundered, “You can’t handle magic, even in the slightest! It’s only the more obvious now, given our current situation-!”

“I gave it up.” Indigo interrupted flatly.

Hecate blinked, visibly taken aback. “You what?”

“I gave it up, about a week ago. Mildred’s been covering for me this entire time. Figured you may as well know now, in case you were thinking I was somehow going to get us out of here with my botched magic.”

“Why … why didn’t you say something sooner?!”

The match almost burnt down to her fingers. Indigo dropped it sharpish, where it spluttered and died. Now the only light in the room provided by the crack above. It was just enough for them to make out one another’s face. 

“Because I didn’t want to leave Cackle’s. It’s the first place I’ve felt at home …” Indigo said, glared at the spent matchstick on the floor in annoyance as if it was the little sticks fault they were in this mess. “and besides where else am I to go? Back on the streets?”

Hecate was struck silent at that possibility. But she brushed away the thought, and walked past Indigo, peering up through the crack above them.

“What was even in that potion you mixed?” she asked, reaching up and examining it with her fingertips, “You were meant to brew a potion to cause hiccups!”

“Why don’t you ask your prized pupil? She messed with my ingredients.” Indie replied. Hecate looked over. 

“Ethel Hallow?” she asked incredulously, “She would never-!” Indigo raised a brow, and Hecate grimaced. “All right. Between you and I, that’s not a very farfetched accusation given her past shenanigans …”

There was a flicker of a smile, and Indigo looked rather intrigued at this side of her teacher she’d never seen before. For a moment there, they were talking almost as if they were …

She watched as her teacher crossed the room, sitting down on a crag that was flat enough to be a seat. Her breathing seemed uneven, and Indigo guessed that she might be claustrophobic to a degree. That must have been why she hadn’t immediately tried to use magic to bring them to safety. So, she decided it was best to just keep talking, to get her mind off their current predicament.

“Is she angry with me?”

“Who?”

“Joy.”

She noticed that, at the name, her teacher couldn’t bring herself to look Indigo in the eye. Her gaze remained straight ahead, steely-eyed and focused as she regulated her breaths.

“I know you know her.” Indigo continued, “I saw the look in your eyes when I met you. Before I even said who I was. Joy must have told you about me.”

Hecate shifted uncomfortably on what was already an uncomfortable seat made of stone as it was.

“She’s angry with herself.”

“Why?” Indigo asked, nose scrunched in confusion, “From what I can remember and what I’ve been told, it was all my fault.”

“Mildred Hubble saved her mother from being turned to stone. Joy couldn’t save you.” Hecate said simply, though tears threatened to prick at the corners of her eyes, and she was grateful for the darkness in the stone-made pocket they were in, for it cloaked her features well enough.

Indigo went silent, and Hecate finally brought herself to look over at the girl, who was fidgeting nervously with a pebble she’d picked up from the floor.

“I’m sure she must be happily married with kids by now.”  
Hecate flushed, frowning, “What makes you think that?” she bristled.

Indigo shrugged, oblivious to the fact that her words sparked anger as she scratched at the stone between her fingers.

“I dunno. I always thought that’s what I’d have when I was older.”

Hecate settled down, recalling her own foolish childhood wishes that she thought might make her happy in the future … she too wanted children at one point. She also thought she would like to be married, to a man. For anything out of the traditional seemed ludicrous, at the time.

“She is happy, with a partner …” Hecate revealed, thinking of her poor Ada aboveground, sick with worry over her love’s whereabouts, “No kids, well … not exactly,” she corrected, thinking of her students as well as hers and Ada’s feline companion.

“Despite all that’s happened in her past … she managed to move on, but only because she had no choice but to do so.”

Indigo nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer, “That’s good to hear. No chance she’d ever want to see me again, I suppose?”

The witch allowed a small smile, to which Indigo’s brow creased in suspicion as she peered closer at her head teacher, scrutinizing her face. Hecate slunk back slowly in the shadows, her eyes growing wide with fear as they both knew exactly where this train of thought was headed.

“Joy?”

The sound of her former first name on her childhood friend’s lips was too much for her to bear. Her heart damn near shattered, as if it were possible for it to do so after having been broken so many times in her life since the day, she lost her …

“It is you, isn’t it?.”

Hecate said nothing, she just watched her, eyes flickering as she tried so hard to keep her composure. She flinched when Indigo raised a hand suddenly, for in that moment she swore the girl would strike her across the face.

Instead, Indigo boldly cupped her face gently with both hands, inspecting her as if she had just met the woman for the first time, had absolutely no sense of boundaries, and hadn’t known her as her deputy headmistress these past few weeks. She was seeing her with new eyes, as a child would, finally seeing her best friend again after all these years. Hecate froze like a deer in headlights, unable to tell her off or shove her away, whether with magic or otherwise.

“You’ve gotten so old!” Indigo laughed nervously through glassy eyes, and Hecate blushed profusely, her eyes ablaze. At that remark, she decided to shake the girl off. 

Indigo’s face faltered, and there was a flicker of fear.

She overstepped.

“Well, you’d be this old too if you hadn’t— if I hadn’t—!" Hecate finally broke, and she got to her feet, crossing the small room, hiding her tears with her back towards her best friend.

“It’s not your fault,” Indigo consoled weakly.

Hecate clutched her pocket watch tightly, casting her eyes to the crack in the ceiling. She raised her casting hand and set off a red spark of magic. It was faint, not only on account of her not being top of her game lately, but also so as to not disturb the earth around them. The ember slithered up to the surface. It took a while, but she heard it reach open air with the faintest pop.  
That small burst of magic was enough to make her dizzy. Ada had suggested that she was coming down with something, but Hecate knew better. This sick feeling she felt, it all had to do with the being in the room with her. With the one she failed, the one she’d thought she’d inadvertently murdered, all those years ago …

A hand covered hers at her side, and this time she did not fight it, letting Indigo press her palm to hers and lace their fingers, as they did all those years ago … 

Hecate looked down at their joined hands, warm brown against pale white, and her heart pained at the difference in age.  
Indigo soon broke the silence, the words spilling out as she leaned her head against her best friend’s shoulder, tears dropping on the stone floor beneath them.  
“I went too far. I should’ve listened to you. I was supposed to be your friend. I failed you.” 

“You were just … you still are, a child, Indigo.” 

“So were you when it happened,” Indigo blubbered, her voice cracking as she rubbed her tears away fiercely with the heel of her free hand, still gripping Joy tight with her other hand, “And you had to live with the thought that you … that you …”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but Hecate knew. Hecate … Joy … collapsed to her knees, wrapping her arms around the young girl, who squeezed her tightly back, crying into her shoulder.

This tall, gangly, stubborn, high spirited girl, despite having been stuck as a statue all these years, was a strong as the stone she’d been turned into. And yet, she fell apart in her best friend’s arms. And Joy too, having built up such a strong wall around her heart over her lifetime, who had only seen it crack enough to let Ada in (and maybe even Mildred once or twice but she’d never admit it) her walls too, had finally fallen. Nearly a lifetime of guilt and anger towards her own actions, as well as her friend’s. they came tumbling down, crashing around them.

Joy clutched Indigo tightly, wishing she could turn back the clock, give her back all those years that magic stole from her. Perhaps there was a way …

“Hecate!” 

The pair jumped at the sound. It was faint and away off but Hecate felt her heart practically leapt from her chest. The two friends looked up towards the sound, but the sliver of light was so thin and the surface so far above them that they couldn’t make out Ada’s face.

“Ada!” Hecate called, loud as she could, her voice cracking.

Instead of Ada’s reply however, came a different response. A low growl came from somewhere in the cave. Somewhere very close to them. Hecate pulled Indigo behind her, backing away from the direction the noise came from.

Still sniffling, Indigo produced another match from her dress pocket and, hand shaking, struck it, and held it out in front of them from around Hecate’s waist.

There, not far from them, was a small tunnel, and in it, a pair of glowing yellow eyes. At the sight of the firelight, the creature began to dig ferociously, in a desperate attempt to reach them before they could escape.

“Golem!” Hecate breathed in a hiss.

It was an under-earth dwelling monster, mostly taken as legend. It was almost human-shaped, but crudely so, and made of clay, with yellow holes for eyes. The absence of teeth made it less intimidating, but it was nonetheless threatening, and very, very dangerous. These creatures were known to smother their prey to death, basically turning its victims into golems themselves.

“Can’t you teleport us out of here?” Indigo cried.

“My magic has been acting up, I can’t send us both!” she snapped back, and realized, turning to look at Indigo.

“No, don’t you dare!”

“Either I send you up or we both die!” Hecate exclaimed, tears in her eyes as she held her fingers up to her childhood friend’s face, preparing to cast.

Indigo Moon swatted her hand away in defiance, “No! I’m not leaving you!”

“Indie!”

Indigo stood at Joy’s side, facing towards the monster as she grabbed her best friend’s hand and clutched it tight.

“This time, we’ll work together.” Indigo said firmly.

“But how, you don’t have any magic!”

The golem growled loudly as its head protruded from the cave wall, and Hecate backed up, taking Indigo with her.

“You don’t always need magic,” Indigo said, more to herself than Hecate, as she pulled her box of matches out and released her friend’s hand, pulling all the matches from the box into her fist, and striking them all at once on the cave wall.

The fire burned brightly on contact with a flourish, causing the beast to recoil in shock.

Indigo threw the lot, and they scattered about in the air like fireworks, but the majority of them managed to hit their target - the golem’s open, roaring mouth.  
The beast closed its mouth, and not long after, it exploded like a wad of clay spun out of control on a pottery wheel.

Remnants of the beast covered the two, who immediately cried out simultaneously in disgust, but upon looking at one another, they couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

They found themselves hugging one another in relief.

But that was short lived, for the earth began to quake around them, and Hecate instinctively pulled the girl down to the floor of the cave, trying desperately to shield her as the ground started to fill the air around them.

She only had a split second to cast a protection spell around them before they were completely engulfed, and everything went dark once more.


End file.
